VM ID reuse on standalone host

phsr

Active Member
Jan 4, 2018
3
1
43
I have found several semi-related threads, but still have no clear picture of what the official position of PVE team is.

My simple scenario: a standalone host with a single PBS server / a single datastore. A VMID 100 (say) exists for a few backup cycles, is destroyed, then recreated. In my testing PBS just writes into the same destination without so much as a warning. On a shared PVE server with multiple users such as the one in question, it is unfeasible to keep track of VMID manually, and I don't think this can be expected of users anyway. But how can we keep track of which backup belongs to which particular VM, and restore it correctly, if necessary? Can this new VM be backed up into some new destination on the same PBS and datastore, but with some different identifier? Something to make it clear that this is a backup of a new source VM.
 
I was surprised to find it work this way as well. The VMID reuse seems to have reliability and security implications. I would think either using universally unique identifiers or at least keeping a tombstone of the deleted vmid's to prevent re-use would be a much safer option.
 

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